


Always Comes

by tormalyne



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Modern Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2018-03-09 00:14:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3228953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tormalyne/pseuds/tormalyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once upon a time, Kise Ryouta was a real boy. Then the Teikou basketball club happened.</p><blockquote>
  <p>Usually, Taiga was restless before any big events, but that night he fell asleep easily in his too-big apartment, empty walls looming overhead. He dreamt the fox was there with him, curled on the pillow beside his head, and the echo of his breathing in the dim space for once felt warm and comfortable instead.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

> Because the fox returns to her husband each night as a woman but leaves each morning as a fox, she is called Kitsune. In classical Japanese, _kitsu-ne_ means _come and sleep_ , and _ki-tsune_ means _always comes. ([source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsune))_  
> 

–

Like most important events in Kagami Taiga’s life, this one began on a basketball court. It wouldn’t end there, although there would be many courts after, and all essential in their own ways, but each reserved for a beginning. This particular court, on a brisk Sunday evening with winter’s last chill lingering in the air, was where Taiga met the fox.

And while Taiga would keep the fox, he never would get back the stolen basketball.

It happened like this: he was in the middle of the run up to a layup. The bushes at the side of the court rustled, and Taiga froze, ever mindful of the possible horrors of unleashed dogs. He wobbled, balanced precariously on one foot as a thin, furred snout poked out of the shrubs and paused to sniff a curious sniff of dusk-laden air. Finding whatever it smelled satisfactory, the snout ventured farther out, enough for Taiga to see the rest of what was attached: not a dog at all, but rather a fox, unusually small and nearly golden in the last rays of the quickly sinking sun. 

Taiga slowly lowered his leg to the ground and tucked the ball beneath his arm, gaping as the fox delicately emerged from its leafy shelter, carefully picking out its steps as though it wasn’t entirely sure of its footing on the sun-warmed concrete. The fox startled a laugh out of Taiga as it jumped, pouncing down onto its own shadow. Reassured of the sturdiness of the ground, it shook itself, shedding leaves and twigs in an enthusiastic, full body shiver.

With renewed confidence, the fox pranced over to weave around Taiga in a complicated circuit of twisting figure eights, ducking in and out between his legs without a single intimation of fear. It yipped as it bounded loops around Taiga – too much like a dog, and Taiga shuddered and grit his teeth, but held still – and daringly rubbed against Taiga’s ankles like one of the friendly stray cats that had lived outside Tatsuya’s apartment in L.A. 

(Tatsuya, it seemed, had attracted all kinds of strays before he decided he was finished with that kind of thing.)

Taiga watched the fox, immobilized and bemused. He was in the heart of Tokyo, even if the street court bordered a park, and for all that Japan was annoyingly different from the States, he didn’t think it was usual for the wildlife to be quite so– friendly. But there was the fox, winding around his feet, and Taiga didn’t have the heart to shoo it away. So far, the fox’s reception was the friendliest Taiga’d yet received.

Without warning, the fox butted its head against the back of Taiga’s shins. He swayed, and the fox lunged between his legs. In the effort not to step on the stupid thing, Taiga tripped and went sprawling face first onto the asphalt with a shout of pain as he skinned his knees.

The ball flew out of his hands. Distantly, he registered the dull thuds as it bounced a few times before it rolled to a stop.

Taiga swore and picked himself up, absently rubbed at a smarting scrape on his palm. Then he looked up, trying to see where the damn fox had gotten to before it could menace him again. 

The fox sat primly at the edge of the court, mouth opened in a toothy smile that showed all its sharp little fangs and with one paw resting proprietarily atop the basketball. Three fluffy tails spilled out around it, so soft looking that Taiga could almost feel the velveteen brush of the fox’s fur.

And Taiga could swear the fox was laughing at him.

The fox batted daintily at the top of the ball, rocking it back and forth as its amber eyes glinted with mischief and a spark of intelligent interest that no animal should have. Slowly, deliberately, it stood, gaze fixed on Taiga all the while, before it lowered its head to nudge the basketball toward the bushes it had come from.

 _His_ basketball.

Taiga yelped and leapt, but by the time he made it across the court, both the fox and his ball had vanished – not back into the underbrush, but in a showy little swirl of leaves caught on a wind rising out of the still evening air.

His heart pounded in his ears, and he swallowed around his throat gone suddenly dry, but that was his basketball, damnit! Even if it was a ghost, or some kind of weird spirit like his mom used to tell him about, he wasn’t going to just give up without a fight!

Taiga trudged back to the court the next day and the day after, searching for an entire week. Even though he scoured the entire park, he could find no trace of thieving fox or his missing ball. 

By the end of the week, though, he didn’t have much time to worry about it anymore. High school started the next day, and considering the state of his middle school, he wasn’t holding any high hopes. He’d get a new basketball eventually, but it wasn’t like the teams here in Japan were much good; he’d go to club, but he doubted he’d need to put in much extra practice.

Usually, Taiga was restless before any big events, but that night he fell asleep easily in his too-big apartment, empty walls looming overhead. He dreamt the fox was there with him, curled on the pillow beside his head, and the echo of his breathing in the dim space for once felt warm and comfortable instead.

In the morning, he didn’t notice that the spot beside him on his pillow held a small, lingering patch of body heat.

–

Taiga thought he was seeing things at first, too tired after the long day of classes (mind numbing and near incomprehensible; the teachers’ patience with the gaps in his knowledge and kanji had worn out after the first week), lunch (only enough because he’d packed his own, and eaten, as he had since that first inauspicious day, alone on the roof), and basketball practice (pathetic, the less said the better) to trust his own eyes.

There was no way that a fox was actually sitting at the door to his apartment, let alone _the_ fox. And the fox it undoubtedly was, with that shade of yellow-gold fur and knowing look on its covetous face, and its tail, now noticeably singular, curled in a fluffy arc around its legs.

Taiga glowered. The fox flicked a pointed ear as though to say _yes, and?_ and remained where it was.

With a grumble, Taiga jostled the lock undone, shoved open the door, and stepped around the fox. Before he could get the door closed again, it stood up and trotted inside.

“Hey!” Taiga made a grab for it, but the fox easily dodged and made its lazy way further into Taiga’s apartment.

Taiga toed out of his shoes, leaving them in an untidy heap by the door in his haste, and skidded into the living room just in time to see the fox leap onto the couch where it paused to sniff at a copy of Basketball Monthly he’d left open last night. 

Curiously, the fox seemed to be reading the page, moving its head back and forth as it scanned the article – something about some middle school team, Taiga managed to glimpse around its body. The Generation of Miracles, what a stupid name. Taiga took the opportunity to finally grab the fox and lifted it away to the accompaniment of indignant, yowling sounds of protest and the magazine spread a casualty to its sharp little claws.

The fox’s fur was just as luxuriously soft as it had looked beneath Taiga’s fingers, and he made sure his hands were gentle around its slim body, for all the thanks that earned. The fox squalled piteously, paws scrabbling at his shirt, catching and tearing. Its tail whipped him right in the face, turning into a heavy obstruction over his nose and mouth. The fur was a lot less enjoyable when he was choking on it, Taiga discovered.

“Seriously, cut it out. I’m not gonna do anything to you,” he snapped, holding the fox out at arm’s length in an attempt to get some oxygen into his lungs.

The fox seemed to listen, or maybe it had just tired itself out, because its protests slowed and gradually stopped until it hung sulkily in Taiga’s arms, a limp, dead weight. Even its tail drooped with petulant dissatisfaction now that it wasn’t being used as a deadly weapon to block Taiga’s airways.

He should have thrown the fox out, dumped it out the window, or called someone to come take care of it, something – what were you even supposed to do with a wild animal?

But he didn’t. Instead, he held it up so he could look at its long, pointed face. The fox looked back at him with keen, clear eyes. Slowly, its ears came forward until they were tilted at a friendly angle and its mouth hung open again in that toothy grin.

Taiga rolled his eyes.

“You’re not fooling anyone,” he said. The fox let out a little purling chirrup, like it totally knew that the cute act was working no matter what Taiga said. After another moment of the tableau frozen between them, it stretched out its head and licked his nose.

Damn it. 

“Fine,” he said, feeling like an idiot for talking to the fox, even if it really did seem like it could understand him. “You can stay for the night, but in the morning…”

–

In the morning, and the morning after, and the morning after that, he still didn’t throw the fox out.

Taiga couldn’t explain why, not for any logical reason. By all rights, he should have gotten rid of the fox out as soon as he’d woken up and seen it stretched out and napping next to him on the bed, feet pawing at the sheets in its sleep. He should have, remembering the tear in his shirt, how this was a wild animal, not something to be kept as a pet, and it wasn’t like he’d wanted a pet in the first place!

But he didn’t. He left the fox sleeping and went to school. When he got back, it greeted him at the door, purring and following him around the apartment like it was genuinely glad to see him. Like it had missed him while he was gone.

After that, he didn’t have the heart to throw the damn thing out the door. The fox, he suspected, knew.

He’d do it the next morning, Taiga swore in the face of the fox’s smug smile, and busied himself cooking dinner. The fox kept him company, apparently content to watch him dice vegetables and toss stir fry, and even once, regally deigning to accept a bit of meat from his fingers before it went back to observing with its golden-eyed stare.

It was kind of weird that the fox didn’t seem hungry the way he’d expect an animal to, but not having to feed it was less of a hassle and Taiga wasn’t going to complain. The memory of its three tails, bright against the street court’s black surface, had yet to fade.

The fox burdened him with its presence in other ways, besides. It turned up its nose in utter contempt at any attempts Taiga made to corral it; locked doors were useless before it, and the fox considered the whole of the apartment its domain with brazen curiosity. Taiga couldn’t count the number of times he’d walked into a room to catch a glimpse of the fox squeezing out of a closet, or wriggling its way out of a drawer, or its body buried shoulders deep in one of the cardboard boxes of his stuff from the States, a flap torn thoughtlessly open to give it access to the keepsakes inside.

If left to its own devices too long, Taiga would (and had) returned to find the fox at the end of a trail of detritus, clothes and knickknacks strewn about in whatever section of the apartment it had decided to explore.

All that, and the fox was demanding on top, shamelessly greedy for attention. It sulked if he was home too late from school. Sitting or lying down, the fox would imperiously shove its way onto his lap or his chest entirely uncaring of Taiga’s fruitless attempts to study or read or listen to music undisturbed.

Taiga’s bed became a warzone.

Taiga, unfortunately, was losing the war. 

No matter where he left the fox, what doors he locked, what inviting nest of blankets he made for it on the couch, every morning he woke to find it curled against his neck, breath hot and damp against his ear and body uncomfortably warm.

For weeks after the fox first arrived, he would occasionally have strangely vivid dreams of burning alive, trapped and suffocating, and woke to the fox staring at him unblinkingly until it was sure he was awake. Satisfied, it would lick his cheek and curl up to sleep once again. Eventually, the dreams passed, but Taiga didn’t forget the comfort of having someone with him in the dark.

Taiga gave up after that and tried very hard not to think about how now, when he went to bed, he had trouble falling asleep sometimes. Just when the fox stayed up later than him, doing whatever it was the fox did. At least it was an easy enough oddity to put out of mind when the fox would curl up against him and he’d find himself drifting to sleep as easily as drawing three breaths. 

Besides, every time Taiga thought about getting rid of the fox, maybe packing it up in a box from the convenience store and lugging it out to some nice woods in the countryside, he’d get distracted, busy with some minor, teenage disaster: he was late for school, he had a test to fail at studying for, he was too worn out with frustration from the farce that had been practice; once, his father called and he spent a terse twenty minutes answering questions, reassuring his dad that yes, Japan was fine, school was fine, he was getting along with the kids in his class, yeah, the basketball team was okay and he was making lots of friends, and by the end of it, he was too wrung out to even think of protesting when the fox slunk onto his lap and nudged at his free hand until he was stroking its downy ears and its nose pressed cold and steadying against his wrist.

He found, when the call finally ended, that he could breathe again. That for once he didn’t feel quite so much like he was a brittle shell of himself, words scooping great gashes from his insides and hollowing him out to tell the lies.

Maybe the fox wasn’t so bad, really. It was pretty nice to have someone greet him at the door.

–

Spring came and went, blooming into a sticky, humid summer, and Taiga could barely remember what it had been like to live without the fox. 

He’d settled into an easy existence with it, giving it a pat before he went off to school in the morning, leaving it sleepily curled on his bed as he shuffled out the door. 

When he got home, he’d shower off the sweat of practice and cook with the fox’s company, or read with the fox stretched across his legs, or, sometimes, if the team’d had a game, head out to the street court near his apartment shoot hoops until the frustrated burn from the day’s unsatisfying match was worn out of his arms, his muscles, the deep, gnawing resentment in his bones. 

The fox always went with him, and sometimes would even play with him in its own way, batting at the basketball as Taiga dribbled and knocking it off course, almost like he had a defender guarding him. 

(It was a better attempt than he’d gone up against in the day’s game, Taiga thought with sour disdain. Some days, he wasn’t sure why he still played.)

Taiga didn’t really get the appeal, but the fox seemed happy enough, content to watch him for hours if it didn’t feel like joining in, and he was glad for the company. He figured the fox must just like basketball; after all, he had yet to see any sign of the ball it’d stolen from him.

If the fox was okay with the arrangement, so was Taiga, and besides, he was distracted by the first piece of good news he’d heard since the school year started: 

The Generation of Miracles, players who might actually be worth facing, and he was up against one of their teams for his next game; Fukuda Sogo and Haizaki Shougo waited, and for the first time since he’d left the States, Taiga found himself filled with the eager excitement of looking forward to a game.

(He didn’t notice that the fox grew restless the nearer the match loomed, pacing through whatever room Taiga was in without letting him out of its sight. He didn’t notice that when Taiga mentioned Haizaki’s name, the fox bared its fangs in a soundless snarl, or that, as he read up on the rest of the Generation of Miracles, Aomine Daiki, Midorima Shintarou, Murasakibara Atsushi, Akashi Seijuurou, murmuring their names aloud, the fox seemed to shrink in on itself, looking tired and worn and somehow less vibrantly itself in a way that Taiga would have been alarmed to see.)

The night before the game, Taiga lay awake for hours, staring at the ceiling and unable to fall asleep. 

He tossed and turned, and finally, after adjusting his pillow for the seventh time, realized that the fox was missing from its usual space against his neck. 

With a muttered grumble, he lurched out of bed and went to look for it. Who knew what kind of mischief it might be up to, never mind that it had stopped tearing the place apart weeks ago.

The fox was nowhere to be found. Instead, a young man stood outside on the balcony, leaning heavily on the railing, pale and thin and hair almost silvery beneath the light of the stars.

Taiga cursed and shoved the door open, spilling harsh electric light onto the balcony as he stormed outside. The boy turned, startled, and Taiga stopped dead, breath catching in his throat like hands had clenched around his neck.

He knew those eyes, that yellow-gold shade of hair.

The boy regarded him in silence for a moment, clearly at a loss, and then one side of his mouth quirked up in a smile, rueful and regretful and with that familiar vulpine slant underneath of not being sorry at all.

“Ah,” the boy – the fox – said, lightly. “You caught me.” He shook his head, ran a hand through his hair to settle the tousled stands, and Taiga had a sudden surge of double vision, a shock of déjà vu as he remembered the fox doing something very similar to settle its ruffled coat after Taiga’d playfully scruffed it up.

“What the hell,” Taiga said, blank and stunned, feeling the words like the hot prick of a knife in his gut. He’d known, of course, somewhere in the back of his mind where he put things he didn’t want to think about, that the fox wasn’t _normal_ , wasn’t really a fox, but this– somehow, this was too much. He’d trusted the fox, laughed at it and held it when he’d felt loneliness threatening to drown him, far away from everything he called home, from anyone he’d call a friend, and he’d been sinking with no way to surface again, and the fox was… Was someone he didn’t know at all, a stranger who’d gotten beneath his skin, seen him stripped down and laid bare.

Before the boy could answer, Taiga saw his closed hand with its fingers curled around something, and then, a moment later, his eyes registered what the dangling chain meant, what the boy held in his fist. Taiga’s blood went cold.

Taiga’s hand flew to his neck, but of course the necklace – the ring – wasn’t there, not when the boy had it, had stolen it from the nightstand beside his bed while he slept. 

“Give me that,” he said, and it sounded as though his voice came from a distance, thick and empty and shattered in his ears. The boy glanced down, following Taiga’s gaze to his hand, and had the gall to look surprised, like he hadn’t even remembered the ring was there.

“Sorry, I always put it back by the time you wake up,” the boy said, and all the cold in Taiga’s body ignited, like gasoline at the touch of a match. He could barely see straight, could barely think, and the boy was still holding his ring, _Tatsuya’s ring_ , and Taiga couldn’t stand it, couldn’t bear it, not that on top of everything else.

He swung and felt his knuckles split against the boy’s cheekbone, dimly registered the boy falling back with a cry, but it didn’t matter, because his hand opened and the chain fell. The ring hit the tiled floor with a soft, musical clink, and then it was in Taiga’s hands and he could breath again as its familiar weight settled around his neck. 

The boy glared up at him from the ground, looking shocked and furious with his hand pressed to the growing bruise on his cheek– and tired, somehow exhausted and worn thin, like he was nothing but a shadow of stardust, vitality leeching away beneath the cold light of the moon, a breath away from scattering to the streets below to be trodden underfoot, ground down into the dirt and lost for good. Seeing it, Taiga’s rage drained away – or mostly did, even if he couldn’t quite banish the bitter taste of betrayal from the back of his throat.

Taiga didn’t have words, could barely tell what the lump was in his chest, some complicated mix of his anger, still burning embers, and guilt, for having made the boy look like that. The boy didn’t seem to want any words, though, just shook his head like it was still ringing from the blow With effort that was painful to see, he clutched at the railing and dragged himself to his feet.

“Be careful of Shougo-kun,” the boy spat, and then he was a fox again, three-tailed and fur in ragged disarray for the first time Taiga could remember; and gone in a vicious gust of wind that sent grit flying into Taiga’s eyes, making them sting.

–

“Hello?” Taiga called in the morning, pausing in front of the door. “Are you there?” His voice sounded hollow against the walls of his empty apartment, their paleness pressing down around him, stark and unignorably bare. He hadn’t noticed, not for a while. Not since the fox had become a fixture, filling up the rooms.

No one answered, and he couldn’t wait any more. He’d miss the bus if he didn’t leave now, and he wouldn’t miss this game for the world. Still, as he locked the door behind him, he couldn’t help but feel a lingering sense of unease that stayed with him all the way to school and his waiting team.

–

The match against Fukuda Sogo was brutal. The whole team was better, national level players, enough to give Taiga himself trouble and he couldn’t handle them all himself; and then Haizaki to twist the knife on top. Taiga’s team had never stood a chance, but he still had to watch as Haizaki stole move after move and ground it into his teammate’s faces until their expressions were blank with hate for him, despair weighing them down, dulling their movements on the court. The whole stadium held its breath, nearly silent, the sick feeling on the court filtering out to the crowd. The spectators only muttered instead of shouting encouragement or reproach.

Taiga could do nothing, had to swallow the seething, nauseating feeling of helplessness as Haizaki stole his moves, too, left him shaky and panting as he jumped for a shot and missed, as his feet came back to the ground, feeling like lead, and for the first time he could remember, he didn’t know if he could jump again.

Haizaki stepped up beside him, sneering at him as he bent over and fought to catch his breath. He said, “So this is who Ryouta picked? He must’ve really been at the end of his rope.”

It made no sense, and Taiga didn’t have the breath to ask, not when he could use it to lunge for the ball, to make a desperate steal and force his legs to move, his hands to dribble the ball. 

He dredged down deep, spurred on by something desperate, a voice soaked in moonlight and fury, and found he had one last jump left in him after all.

(He would have sworn as he felt the rush of the ball sinking into the net that he saw a flash of gold from the corner of his eye; Haizaki shouted something he couldn’t make out through the roar in his head, but he saw Haizaki’s face twist into raw, ugly rage, saw the hand that had been reaching for him, clawed and covered in scales and the farthest thing from human, turned aside, yanked away from him even though nothing – no one – was there.)

His team still lost miserably, but at least he could mostly swallow the rough edges of the loss when he thought of that one, soaring dunk, that one moment when time had seemed to slow and he’d hung, suspended and weightless, in the air.

–

Taiga staggered home on fumes, sheer force of will the only thing keeping him on his feet, and wasn’t surprised when he finally fumbled the door open to see the balcony door ajar, or the figure standing silhouetted against the murky glare of the Tokyo skyline.

Taiga shuffled out to the balcony and stared for a moment, taking in the way the boy slumped, how weariness dragged his shoulders down, the glassy sheen of his golden eyes. The boy stared back and shifted his weight, and defiance and pure stubbornness straightened his spine.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Taiga asked, voice cracking, and meant _were you using me this whole time?_ and _why did you help me at the end?_ and, most of all, _why did you come back?_

The boy only shook his head and leaned back, his elbows against the rail, head tilted up to look at the stars, the moon, the vast, hungry emptiness of the sky. Taiga swallowed, staring at the lean lines of the boy’s throat, and for a long moment, thought he wasn’t going to reply.

“Sorry, Kagamicchi,” the boy finally said with a sigh. He tipped his head back down, and Taiga balled his fist against the sick wave of guilt that washed through him at seeing the bruise dark on the boy’s cheek. “There’s a lot I can’t tell you, okay? Not yet.”

The boy pushed away from the railing and took a step forward, then another, and finally one more, until he was pressed up in Taiga’s space. They were nearly of a height, and Taiga could smell the faint, clean scent of the fox’s fur from the boy’s hair, was sure that if he stroked it like he had the fox, it would have the same silky softness beneath his fingers.

“I just really liked your basketball,” the boy said, and when the boy lifted his hand to cup Taiga’s cheek with his strangely warm palm and calloused fingers, Taiga leaned into the touch like he could do nothing else. Secretive, the boy’s voice lowered to a whisper as he confessed, “I thought that maybe, you could’ve been one of us.”

Taiga opened his mouth, to ask– what, he had no idea, but it didn’t matter. The boy leaned forward and kissed him, unpracticed and awkward, their noses bumping, and yet still gentle and achingly sweet for it anyway– or because of it, and Taiga pressed himself into the kiss, chasing something fleeting and vital, something clenching in his chest that he had no name for but felt light, like that moment he’d hung floating during the game.

“Asshole,” Taiga said without feeling when the boy drew back – but not far, and he kept his arms looped around Taiga’s shoulders, and some part of Taiga was selfishly glad despite the strain he could see on the boy’s face, pale not just from the moonlight, he realized, but something hidden beneath the smiling surface, deep within him, drained – but better, Taiga thought, than it had been the night before.

“Yeah, I kind of am,” the boy said, and Taiga rolled his eyes but wasn’t surprised at all by the clear lack of repentance in the boy’s voice.

“You definitely are.” He reached for the boy’s hand, trying not to smile as he curled their fingers together, as he held fast to the strength in the boy’s hand and felt the boy hold fast to his own. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Oh, that,” and the boy laughed, and his face brightened, washing the shadows of his exhaustion away, and Taiga felt himself smiling helplessly along with him, despite himself. “Kise,” the boy said.

Kise leaned in, resting their foreheads together, and Taiga wrapped his arm around Kise’s waist, holding him close.

“I’m Kise Ryouta,” he breathed against Taiga’s lips. “It’s very nice to meet you, I really am sorry about everything. Well, mostly everything. Some of it,” he amended. “Now kiss me again.”

Taiga did, but only after he’d grumbled some more, and Kise’s silky tails spread around them like the blossoming petals of a flower, hiding them from the moon’s view.


	2. Never Tell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five things Kise will never tell Kagami (and one thing he already has).
> 
> An epilogue, of sorts.

Five things Kise will never tell Kagami:

1.

That he’s sorry for getting Kagami involved in the whole tangled mess in the first place.

Not when Kagami’s on his knees in front of Akashi, nothing human left in the cold thing that’s looking out from Akashi’s eyes at them. It’s not Akashi, Kise can tell, but something reptilian and ancient, something that doesn’t understand human things like warmth or friendship but knows far too much about sacrifice and taking life. ( _There are two Akashi Seijuurous_ , the others know, but Kise’s the only one who can see that in Akashi’s body, two’s company and three’s a crowd.)

Not later, when Kagami’s bleeding out, his blood warm and sticky and so terribly, beautifully red as it seeps through Kise’s fingers, stains Kise’s hands. (It takes more out of Kise than he has to give to keep that from being the end.)

Not even when Kagami comes to him, pale and silent and stricken, and holds out the ring, flaking with rust. (Himuro Tatsuya has started forgetting pieces of Kagami, more and more every day; at first it was just little things, what they ate for lunch together, a playground they frequented back when they were living in the States – but yesterday, it had taken Himuro an entire five minutes to remember Kagami’s name. Kise knows, finally, what deal Kagami made, what Kagami paid as the price to save his life.)

Not even then.

Kise is selfish, and Kise won’t lie, not to himself. And not to Kagami, about this. There’s not a single part of him that’s sorry in the slightest that he met Kagami that day, not one bit of him that feels bad that he insinuated himself and his trouble into Kagami Taiga’s life.

Kise figures it’s alright, though. Kagami already knows what he’s like and wants him to stick around anyway. 

2.

What he spent his time doing, between when Haizaki laid the curse on him and when he saw Kagami on the street court that spring evening that reminded him he’d had a human life.

There’s not much to tell, really. A fox in the heart of Tokyo doesn’t have many choices when it comes to food and shelter if it doesn’t have a human (a sucker, Kagami likes to say) to take it in.

There’s nothing interesting about how he’d shivered through that first torrential rain storm, how he’d picked a fight with one of the many wild dogs that roam Tokyo’s streets just because he was so hungry and the scrap of meat was the first thing he’d have to eat in days– how he’d sat huddled in the corner of a filthy alley for hours, his own soft, whining cries the only comfort he had, and unable to put weight on his leg where the dog’s snapping teeth had grazed.

An animal’s life would make for a boring story, or so Kise says whenever Kagami asks. Who wants to hear about chasing rabbits or digging through trash?

Anyway, Kise doesn’t like to think about it much. Kagami can tell, he thinks; he never puts up much of a fuss when Kise changes the subject.

3.

That after all this time watching Kagami in the kitchen, he knows perfectly well how to cook. 

He wasn’t hopeless before he became a fox, even if his idea of making a meal had been to stop at the convenience store after school and, when he got home, eat whatever his mom put in front of him.

There just doesn’t seem to be much point to pointing out to Kagami that looking up ingredients and memorizing the motions Kagami uses to flip an omelet are at least as easy as copying someone’s special, oddball shot. Kagami seems happy enough scolding him whenever he sets foot in the kitchen, anyway, as if he’ll burn all the pots the instant Kagami takes his eyes off him.

Kise could correct him, but he doesn’t bother. Nothing he makes would taste as good as Kagami’s food, that’s all.

4.

What would have happened if Kise hadn’t stopped Haizaki during the InterHigh match.

(A slow sickness, creeping malaise, poison from the tiny pinpricks of Haizaki’s claws against Kagami’s back – just a dull lethargy at first, then dizziness and a constant headache; then loss of appetite and shooting pains, nerves wracked with agony until it hurt too much to walk, to run, to scream– and then Haizaki would come.

Haizaki likes to eat his meals alive and fresh, but only after he’s watched them in agony to flavor to his taste.)

Kise’s never liked Haizaki’s way of doing things.

5.

What it cost Kise to stop Haizaki. 

He still wakes up some nights shaking, biting his lip to muffle the choked sobs, feeling like he’s still caught in the webs of the dream – but that’s okay. He’d pay the price again in a heartbeat, and he’s managed to keep Kagami from waking up to see him, anyway.

–

And one thing he already has:

That he loves Kagami’s basketball.

He loves the strong curve of Kagami’s hand around the ball, perfectly fitted like Kagami’s fingers were made to hold the ball. He loves watching the fierce joy on Kagami’s face every time he gets a pass, passes a defender, makes a shot. 

Kagami’s smile when he wins a game 

Kise feels dizzy and a little breathless sometimes, seeing Kagami jump. 

Kagami loves the game in a way that Kise had forgotten, and he loves Kagami for it.

He;s not sure he’ll ever tell Kagami that for a while, as the fox, he’d stopped wanting to play, even the memory of Teikou too much salt in an open wound – until he saw Kagami that night, alone and angry and raw, and for the first time since everything happened, Kise had itched for fingers to hold a ball again. Wanted legs to stand beside someone on a court.

But he’s told Kagami that he loves his basketball, and that’s not a lie. Kagami thinks he was joking, of course, being flippant, but Kise had been more serious in that moment than he’d ever been in his life.


End file.
